don't let me go (hold me in your beating heart)
by Tarafina
Summary: After Stefan's death, Caroline spirals, flipping the switch on her humanity. A familiar face talks her back from the edge.


**title**: don't let me go (hold me in your beating heart)  
**category**: the vampire diaries  
**genre**: drama/angst/romance  
**ship**: stefan/caroline  
**rating**: teen/pg-13  
**spoiler(s)**: 5x21 – Promised Land  
**prompt**: Caroline turns off her humanity when Stefan dies! - anonymous (Tumblr)  
**word count**: 5,846  
**summary**: After Stefan's death, Caroline spirals, flipping the switch on her humanity. A familiar face talks her back from the edge.

**_don't let me go (hold me in your beating heart)_**  
-1/1-

_You can't see me  
But you still feel me  
I only live in your memories  
I mean something  
Your everything  
You lay me down  
Take me there_

Things spiralled after Stefan.

Caroline went to the funeral the following afternoon, but she was distant. There were voices, hands reaching for her, comfort lost in the dull, unfocused lens that she saw the world through. Elena and Damon, Matt and Jeremy, and Bonnie beside her, a hand on her wrist, as if to anchor her there. Caroline didn't remember what was said; not what platitudes were offered, what promises of revenge were sneered, what concern was given. She simply waited for it to be over, waited for that moment where she laid a flower on a memorial in farewell to someone who meant so much to her that words escaped her. And then she left, moving through the town in a fog.

She walked away in her too black dress, the only one she owned, for occasions just like this. Because she wasn't supposed to wear black. She wasn't supposed to dress for Death. She was supposed to be optimistic and hopeful and to always see the brighter side of things, and her wardrobe was evidence of that. But today she wore black. She laid a flower on her best friend's grave and she walked away, sifting through the world, sound nothing more than a rush in her ears. And she climbed the stairs of her porch and walked into her bedroom, shedding her shoes and her jacket and the gloves she wore that hid a ring that reminded her of him. Of his smile when Bonnie fixed it so she could walk in the sun. She sat on her bed, her hands on her knees, and she stared at the floor, her mind adrift, lost. For hours, she sat like that, unmoving. And then she laid down, and she didn't get up.

While the others were out planning against Markos, she was nothing but a shell. Her body was there, but her mind was absent. It was free-floating, lost in the ether while she struggled to understand what she was going to do. Who she was going to be. She'd lost so many. _Too _many. But he was the last. She wouldn't do it anymore. She _couldn't._

The ache in her heart was the most excruciating thing she'd ever felt. Cradling Stefan's greying face in her lap, screaming for help and getting none of it, she felt her entire being constrict. Just before it happened, she'd been struggling to understand when things had changed, when her feelings for him had become something more than friendship, but when she really looked back, dug into their history together, she thought maybe it was always there. Even when friendship was the overwhelming fact, the defining characteristic, she was still falling in love with him. And now he was gone.

He was just _gone_.

And that… that hurt like nothing else could.

The ache tore her up for all of three days, curled up in the foetal position in her bedroom. She couldn't make her head stop thinking about him. His stupid laugh and his smile and the way he hugged her. How he said her name and knew all of her complicated _Caroline-ness_ and how he accepted it, _all_ of it. She couldn't stop thinking of the wrinkles at the corner of his eyes when he was happy and how he promised, he _promised promise promised_, he would never let anything happen to her. But _he_ happened. His _death _happened. And it hurt, god it _hurt_. Everything hurt. She tangled her fingers in her and _pulled, _screaming into her pillow, trying to force that pain that welled up inside, burning at her throat and tearing at her skin, to just stop. Please, please, stop. She didn't want to feel this. She couldn't do this. She couldn't, she _couldn't_.

It was raw. Too raw. It was like a radiating force of agony that made every inch of her feel like it was clawing for life, trapped under the weight of too much rubble. Like she was searching for a way out, but there was nothing. No light at the end of the tunnel. No promise that brighter days were ahead. And she tried, God she tried _so hard _to believe that there always was. There was, there was. She could be the most optimistic person in any room. She could tell anybody that no, _of course_ the world's not _really _ending. Caroline Forbes could be sunshine on the darkest night. But not anymore.

She called his phone, over and over again, just to hear his message, to hear his _voice_. The same old lack-luster, 'leave a message at the beep.' But it was _him_, it was _his_ voice, and she needed it. Sometimes she said his name out loud just to hear it. Just to feel it on her lips, to feel her tongue wrap around ever letter. Stefan. _Stefan_. **_Stefan_**.

God, she missed him. She missed him _so much_. And she just kept thinking about it. About that moment when it all ended. She should have been faster. She should have killed Julian before he had a chance to see her creeping up on him. She should have intervened before he had a chance to kill Stefan. She knew, she _knew_, Stefan wasn't strong enough. He was injured, low on blood, he stood no chance. And he died for her. He died. _For her_.

That thought ran through her head on repeat. Writing itself so deeply on her heart that it was all she knew. Her fault. All hers. She was the reason he was dead. He promised to keep her safe, yes, but she should have kept _him _safe. He was her best friend. _Hers_. And she let him die.

For three days, she tortured herself with that knowledge.

On the fourth day, she couldn't do it anymore.

She'd been crying herself to sleep, struggling to breathe when she was awake, drowning under the weight of reality. And then a little voice started telling her how nice it would be if she could just be numb. _Numb_. Not feel anything for a little while. Just long enough for her heart to stop squeezing so tightly. Just a little while. And it sounded so good; it sounded so beautiful. Just a tiny bit of relief.

She toyed with the idea all day, staring up at the ceiling, her cheeks wet, thinking of him, of all the ways he'd tell her not to do it, that caring was what made her human, what made her _Caroline_. But he wasn't there. His voice in her head was just that, _in her head_. He was gone. _Gone, gone, gone_. And he wasn't coming back. Bonnie said so.

He was dead.

She was alone.

It was her fault.

Caroline closed her eyes, swallowed tightly, and shut it down.

She flipped the switch.

And when she opened her eyes, it was gone. All of it. All of the pain. All of the fear. All of the loss. It was a distant feeling, an acknowledgement of what happened and no feelings on the matter either way.

She rolled off her bed, wiping a tear from her cheek, and licked it from the tip of her finger before she smirked. She needed music and liquor and… blood. A lot of blood.

Caroline waved goodbye to Mystic Falls four days after Stefan died, and she left a string of bodies in her wake, starting with Julian.

* * *

For eight months, she was untouchable.

She moved through the world with lethal grace, inviting flies into her web, deceptive in her blonde-haired, blue-eyed, angelic sweetness. She moved city to city, spending time in clubs each night, dancing away her boredom, happy in her solitude until she was hungry. And then she would spin, hair bouncing wildly at her shoulders, and she would scan the bodies moving around her for whatever pretty boy was eyeing her up like a piece of meat. With a laugh, she would crook her finger and invite him over. She'd even let him dance with her for a while, amused that she was playing with her food, and then when he got a little grabby, she'd lead him away, into some dark corner somewhere or an empty bathroom or a back alley. And just when he'd think he was going to get lucky, she'd grin at him, every bit of sweet Caroline melting away, replaced with the cold-blooded killer. She liked to watch the fear fill their face, that moment of panic flare up into their eyes, and then, before they could scream, she'd sink her teeth into their neck, tear their jugular out and sate her hunger. For a little while.

She felt stronger when she drank from the source instead of just out of blood bags. She felt invincible. She compelled whoever she liked, staying in the best hotels, getting all of her drinks on the house, and going on free shopping sprees whenever she felt like it. Every once in a while she'd run into another vampire and they'd pulled the 'this is my territory' card on her. Depending on how she was feeling, she'd pick and choose what she wanted to do with them. Sometimes she'd invite them to play her game with her, tapping the local clubs for a good meal. Other times, she'd kill them. She had no qualms about putting down a few vamps, especially when they were threatening to ruin her fun and do the same to her.

The only disappointing part of killing vampires was that she didn't get anything out of it. It was like batting a fly away. Sure, she was left alone, but there was no real satisfaction. And that was all Caroline wanted. It was all she chased. For just a little while, when she was so lost in her dancing or when she was teeth-deep in a neck, that first, long, draw, she'd feel something like joy. A flash of something that felt, not just happy but, _free_. Ever since she'd turned it off, all she felt was numb. She could fake happiness, smile and laugh and move through the world without the weight of it on her shoulders, but everything else was blunted. She didn't experience joy, not really. There was an empty space where the more satisfying feelings used to be. Sex helped sometimes. But only briefly. When it was over, the emptiness would rush back in and replace it once more, and to make up for it, she'd drain her partner, leaving a bloody mess behind before she slunk away, back to her car, to her road trip to nowhere.

But still, the voice promised her, the numbness was better than what she'd felt before. The emptiness was better than how she'd felt when Stefan was gone. When she laid in bed, constantly telling herself that she was the reason he was dead. If she'd just been faster, if she hadn't hesitated with her arms around Tyler's – _no! _- Julian's head, if she hadn't let him catch her, then maybe Stefan wouldn't have interfered, wouldn't have had his heart ripped from his chest.

No, this was better. Because remembering, letting herself feel that, it was too much.

He was gone.

He was never coming back.

And she didn't want to feel that. She didn't want to know what that felt like.

So, she felt nothing.

* * *

It seemed apt that she was in Sin City. Las Vegas was good to her. There were so many and they were all so reckless; ripe for the picking. And she did her picking.

She was at Haze, surrounded by dancers wearing neon body paint. Hands raised high above her head, she danced, eyes closed as she lost herself to the music, the beat vibrating through her. She thought of him sometimes, of his arms around her as they moved to a much slower song. She thought of all the dances they'd shared over the years, her hand fitting into his. But then she'd shake her head and she'd focus on the music at is was. On life as it was now. Without him. Always without him. No Stefan-shaped body next to her, no Stefan-shaped hand reaching for hers. No Stefan.

She didn't say his name out loud anymore. It felt different on her tongue. Foreign. _Wrong_.

Opening her eyes, she cast them around the room. It was busy tonight, bodies all pressed in close together, sweat making clothes cling to skin. She saw something move out of the corner of her eye, too fast to be human. Her brow furrowed as she turned to track them. If it was another vampire, there were a few options; take them out, let them play, or see what they were up to. So long as no one interrupted her fun, Caroline generally let other vampires do what they wanted. But she wasn't dumb; she knew it was important to keep an eye on them, to be aware of what they were doing so they didn't blow her cover somehow.

She started moving through the crowd, searching them out, and saw a blur far to her left. She frowned, moving toward it, her eyes narrowed. It was reckless, moving through a crowd like this at that speed. They could bump into someone and start catching too much attention. It didn't matter how fast they were going or how drunk the crowd was, someone, the wrong kind of someone, might take notice. Las Vegas wasn't vampire hunter free. Nowhere was, really. They were out there, waiting for a sign, and Caroline wasn't going to let her Vegas trip end early. She'd only been there three days and she wanted a few more.

She could feel eyes on her back, the tiny hairs on her neck raising, and she turned, staring through the crowd until she found them, standing motionless in a room of moving bodies. But when her eyes caught who it was, she went still.

_Stefan_.

Or that's who it looked like anyway.

But that was impossible.

Stefan was dead.

Her lip curled with a snarl, her eyes flashing, and then she didn't care about the crowd, she simply ran at him. _Whoever _he was.

He moved before she reached him and, vicious with her anger, she followed after him, right out of the club and down the street. He moved just fast enough for her to follow, but not enough to get away from her. An instinct niggled at the back of her head, screaming at her- _trap, it's a trap_. But she was angry. How dare they! How. _Dare. _They.

She chased him until they were standing atop a building, overlooking the bright, moving lights of Las Vegas. He stood near the edge, facing away from her, lit up in green and blue and yellow, with his hands on his hips

She growled, eager and ready to rip out the throat of this… _imposter_.

"Who are you?" she demanded, rocking from one heel to the other, ready to attack, to kill, to _destroy_. "Another doppelganger? _Huh_? I'm so _sick _of doppelgangers."

He turned slowly, tugging the sleeves of his shirt up his forearms in a gesture so familiar she almost felt a pang in her heart. Only she didn't have a heart. Not now. Not anymore. So she simply glared, waiting for an answer.

"You know who I am." He raised an eyebrow. "I'm Stefan. Not another doppelganger. I'm exactly who you think I am… Who you're _hoping _I am."

She snarled, moving toward him slowly, her hips swaying and her head cocked, a predator in every way. "Cool story, tell me a new one… Maybe one that I don't know the end of. Because newsflash, _clone_, I was there when he died. I _held _him when he died. So if you want to survive this moment, you better start thinking up better lies."

"It's not a lie." He shook his head slowly, staring at her meaningfully. "Caroline, it's me. It's _me_." His eyebrows hiked high. "What do I need to do to prove it, huh? How about when Katherine turned you and Damon wanted to kill you? I _promised _you that I wouldn't let anything happen to you… Rabbit-hunting, right? And serious-vampire-look, which isn't far from my 'hey, it's Tuesday look.'" He shook his head. "I can always come to you, remember? Is this ringing any bells?"

Caroline narrowed her eyes at him. "That's not possible."

"It shouldn't be," he agreed, crossing his arms over his chest loosely. "And it's complicated."

"How complicated?" She shook her head. "How are you _here?_" She stepped a little closer, eyeing him carefully. "Are you real? Or one of those ghost thingies?"

"I'm real. And it…" He sighed. "It was Bonnie."

Caroline stared at him. _Bonnie_. Complicated was probably an understatement. When Caroline left Mystic Falls, everything was falling apart. She'd taken a backseat to all of it as her own personal world took a much more devastating blow. She hadn't recovered by the time Damon and Elena had enacted some plan to fight Markos. She'd simply left. At that point, she hadn't cared anymore. She didn't care what happened to anybody in that town. She'd simply left, and had her fun while she waited for the inevitable moment that magic was stripped from the world and she returned to death. But, when it never came, some distant part of her recognized that they must have fixed it somehow, kept Markos from winning in the end. She'd raised a glass in silent cheers and continued with her road trip.

Until now.

She circled him, her head cocked curiously. "She brought you back? Just like that?"

"It wasn't easy." He shook his head, turning to stay facing her, even taking a few steps to get closer. He was being careful, approaching her like a rabid animal he didn't want to spook. "I've only been back a few months."

"And you decided a vacation was due? In Las Vegas no less." She smirked. "Can't fault your logic. The night scene here is… _delicious_."

He sighed, his shoulders lifting. "Caroline, this isn't you… This isn't what you do."

"On the contrary, it's _exactly_ what I do. It's what I've _been _doing for eight months." She shrugged. "And I happen to be very good at it."

"No, the Caroline I know would never willingly hurt people. She cares too much. She'd hate herself for this." He winced, his gaze falling to the ground. "I know how hard it is, to face life when it feels like all it ever does is hurt you. But Caroline, you're better than this. I know you are, because you are the strongest, kindest and most loving person I have ever known."

"I get that you were dead, but you must've missed the memo. Ball of sunshine, optimistic Caroline has left the building. And she's not slotted to return for a while, so stow the sentimental pep talk, all right?" she snarked.

"_No_."

She glowered at him. "Excuse me?"

Stefan's jaw ticked for a moment, his only tell, and then he was there, right in front of her, his hands wrapped around her forearms as if to keep her in place. "She's not gone. I know she isn't. She's in there, behind the numbness." He stared her in the eyes searchingly. "Listen to me, I know that you're hurting… I know that when I died—"

She pulled at her arm, but he only held on tighter.

"—it tore you up. I know because, for a second, I thought he was going to kill you instead, and the idea of not having you in my life was _crippling_. So I know that you're feeling that now. And I'm sorry, I'm sorry you had to go through that and that you've had go through eight months of this. But I'm here now… Caroline. And I promise you, I'm not going anywhere. Not if I can help it."

She stared at him, looking so sincere, so familiar, so _desperate _for her to hear him. And the voices in her head began to battle it out.

One was caustic, bitter, and told her to push him away. She didn't need him. Rip his heart out again and toss it to the ground. _Show _him that she was better off without him.

But another voice, this one smaller, a little farther away and harder to hear, was insistent, telling her to list to him, _hear _him, because it was Stefan.

Back and forth, they argued.

_Rip his heart out!_

No, no, it's Stefan! _Your _Stefan! He's _back!_

_He _left _you. He promised not to let anything happen to you and he lied. He _died_. He died on you and left you behind. Kill him. _

Don't you dare! Are you listening to yourself? This is Stefan! Stefan, your best friend, the only person who understands _all _of you. He would do anything to keep you safe. _You _would do anything to save him. Don't you understand? Yes, it hurt. But he's back. He's _back_. And he's here, right now.

_For how long? How long before he dies again? Why even try? This is easier, isn't it? This is so much easier. Stay like this. This is easy. This is freedom. There is no _pain _here. _

There is_ too_ pain. There's loneliness. God, you're so lonely, can't you see that? You have no friends, no family here. Even with it switched off, some part of you misses him. Ugh, stop being so difficult and just admit it—_You love him!_

_No!_

Yes!

A choked noise grabbed her attention and Caroline jolted back to the here and now, only to find her fingers sunk through Stefan's chest, the wet, warm feel of his blood coating her hand. She held his heart in her hand; _literally_. While the two parts of her battled it out for dominance, one part had decided to take action. All she would have to do is pull— Pull his heart out and let it drop to the ground and things would go back to how they were. How they'd been for eight months. No more Stefan. No more sorrow or hurt or pain. Just nights filled with dancing and feeding and _running, running, running_. As far as she could get from anything she knew.

She stared at his chest, his shirt soaking through with blood, and then she raised her eyes up and stared at him. His breathing was stilted, a choked stutter, and his lips were parted. His brows hiked a little high as he stared down at her with wide eyes.

He should have been scared, angry, even confused, but he wasn't. He reached a hand up and brushed his fingers over her chin. And with a wet, choked voice, he said, "I _know _you… I _believe _in you… _Caroline_."

A knot formed between her brows. "I could pull your heart out and you wouldn't even fight me," she murmured.

He shook his head minutely.

"Why?"

"You won't."

Her eyes narrowed and her fingers flexed, squeezing his heart briefly, as if to warn him. "How do you know I won't?" she gritted out.

He rubbed his thumb against her cheek. "You have dirt…"

She blinked at him, something niggling at the edges of her mind. "What?"

And he smiled; with his heart literally in the palm of her hand, ready and waiting to be torn out, he _smiled _at her. "You're my best friend."

_Kill him. Do it now. Do it!_

"I know you… better than you know yourself."

_Shut up. Shutupshutupshutup_.

"And even on your _worst_ day… you'd never do anything to really hurt me."

_Prove him wrong. Show him. Show him who you really are!_

"Because you love me, Caroline…" He covered her wrist, where it stuck damply from his chest. "As much as I love you."

She felt his fingers rub at her wrist, through his own blood to reach her skin.

"Come back," he said, staring at her meaningfully. "Turn it back on."

_Don't. Don't do it. Don't listen to him. Don't—_

The stars were beautiful.

Hard to see through all of the lights of Las Vegas, but there all the same. She tipped her head back and stared at the sky, the corners of her eyes bright with color, and then she pulled her hand from his chest and let it hang limply at her side.

Blood dripped from the ends of her fingers, puddling on the ground beside her foot.

He stumbled, falling forward, into her, and, hesitantly, she wrapped her arms around him to catch him. His head fell to her shoulder, his breath wet and warm on her throat. They sunk to the ground together and his head slowly drifted into her lap. He lay face up, panting, and, when she had enough courage to, she looked down at him, staring up at her, a faint smile pulling at his lips.

"I knew you wouldn't…" he said thickly.

She shook her head, a tear spilling down her cheek. "You're an idiot," she whispered, her heart swelling up in her chest, grief tearing her up as much as relief soared through her, tripping over each other for her attention. "I could've killed you. I almost _did_!" she told him, her brows hiked up high.

But Stefan didn't look worried; he didn't even look fazed. "You wouldn't have."

She shook her head. "Do you have any idea what kind of risk you just took? And after you only _just _came back." She growled her frustration, slapping his shoulder. "And you have no back-up or anything. What kind of plan even was this?"

He shrugged. "Didn't really have one… Damon told me you left, that you weren't… _right_ after everything happened. I took a wild guess, figured out you turned off your humanity, and started tracking you… Took me a while, but I finally found you out here. I went to three other clubs before I found you."

Caroline scoffed. "You're usually smarter than this. The level-headed one who knows he should bring back-up and plan on how to get a vampire with no humanity somewhere safe without putting yourself in danger. I mean, at least with Elena you and Damon partnered up."

"It's not the same."

She stared down at him, her brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"Elena… Things were so complicated; we weren't sure which one of us would get through to her, if either of us. Everything was so tangled then. There were too many personal feelings involved. And in the end, it wasn't us at all. It was Matt." He shook his head. "And for Elena, it was losing Jeremy, her only family, that made her flip the switch. She had to deal with her grief, to accept that she lost him…" He closed his eyes briefly and reached up to take her hand, folding their fingers together. "If Damon came for you, it wouldn't have done anything except maybe make you angrier. But if I came, I knew I could get through to you. I'm not saying you wouldn't have eventually accepted that I was gone and come back, but I know it wouldn't have been soon."

"So Caroline's Killer Rampage could've gone on a lot longer…" she mumbled, sighing to herself.

"You weren't thinking straight. I know you feel guilty, and I know it's going to take a while for you to accept what happened, but I'll be here. I'll help you through that." He smiled rather sardonically. "I have a little experience with it."

She snorted, casting her eyes away and shaking her head. It was a few minutes of just sitting with him, feeling his fingers trace and tug at hers, before she asked him, "What you said… about how it would feel if I'd died…"

"That it'd be crippling."

"Yeah… What'd you mean?"

He tipped his head to look up at her, his brow furrowed. "You're not just a part of my life… You're a part of me. You're optimistic where I can be cynical. You're happy where I'm brooding. And you make me feel like I can be those things, too. Like I can have hope and have fun and not let everything going on around us pull me down. You're—"

"The wind beneath your wings," she said, her voice faint and teasing.

He half-grinned up at her. "You _balance_ me. And if you weren't here, I don't… Imagining that, imagining what you felt when I died, that's crippling to me. Because if I had to go through that, if I had to lose you, I know what I'd do. I know that the Ripper would come out and he wouldn't go away for a long time. And he wouldn't have you there to pull him back from the edge."

She stared down at him, her mouth turning down. "It felt wrong, being alive, _breathing¸_ when you couldn't."

"I know… And we'll talk, one day, when it's not so fresh, about how we should probably work on our coping skills on the off-chance that one of us dies again." He squeezed her hand to keep her from interrupting. "I'm not saying it'll happen. But our lives aren't exactly risk-free. So we should be prepared. So that things like this, things like me fading back into a Ripper and you flipping that switch, aren't our go-to's at the idea of losing each other."

"It's probably not healthy," she agreed.

"It's part of being a vampire. When you love, you love infinitely. And when you lose someone, you feel it on a level that can destroy you if you let it. But the last thing I'd want if I did die was for you to lose everything that makes you who you are." He stared up at her meaningfully. "Just like I know that letting that side of me take over, letting the Ripper out, would disappoint you."

"Hurt me," she corrected. "I might be disappointed that all of your hard work was destroyed, because you try _so _hard to be a good person. But I'll never be disappointed in _you_. I'll never think less of _you_, Stefan."

He smiled, nodding. "I know. Because that's how I feel about you." Before she could interrupt, he said, "And that includes now and everything that happened in the last eight months. All right?"

She swallowed thickly, but nodded down at him, blinking back tears.

"Good." He let out a heavy sigh and wiggled his head around in her lap to get comfortable. "Gimme a few more minutes and then we'll go. It's been a long three months chasing you across the country."

"Go?" she asked, struggling with, and then giving in to, the desire to stroke his hair back from his forehead, her fingers skimming down his temple.

He leaned into her touch, his eyes falling to half-mast. "Home."

She nodded then, chewing her lip a little. It would be weird, she thought, to go back to Mystic Falls, knowing that she left at a pivotal point in the fight, that she'd lost all control and left so many bodies in her wake. But as scary as that was, knowing she'd have to face Bonnie and Elena and Damon, that she might have to tell them that Crazy Train Caroline went off the rails, she comforted herself with the fact that she wouldn't be telling them alone. She would have Stefan. Her best friend. Her only kind-of dead… _undead_...? best friend by her side.

"Caroline?"

"Hm?"

"We're gonna talk about the being-in-love-with-each-other thing on the ride home, all right?"

She went still, looking down at him with an expression that was no less than stricken. "What?"

He half-smiled, but his eyes were closed, like he was dozing. "I think it's pretty self-explanatory."

With a small sigh, he turned his head and rubbed his nose against her leg, and then he was sleeping. She couldn't blame him. She'd torn a hole in his chest to get at his heart. He should probably be drinking back a few blood bags to recoup. But he wanted sleep and she, well, she kind of wanted him to stay exactly where he was a little longer. So, she let him lay there, her fingers running through his hair, while she watched him like some kind of Edward Cullen reject. Because his skin had color again; it wasn't grey and cracked like in all of the nightmares she'd been having for eight months now. He was alive and breathing and warm under her fingertips. It was almost enough to make her cry again.

In fact, she did a little, silently scrubbing at the tears that tripped down her cheeks, rubbing her fingers under her nose as she sniffled. He was back. She had him again. Part of her wanted to just lay down beside him and wrap herself around him, hide him from all the dangers of the world, because _this_, all of this, she _never_ wanted to feel it again. She never wanted to know what it felt like to be in a world that didn't have Stefan Salvatore in it. So yes, she loved him. God, she loved him _so much_. And she didn't know where that was going; she didn't know if it was something they could make work romantically. But she wasn't giving up. At the very least, she was keeping him as her best friend in the whole world. And she promised herself that she was never letting anybody get anywhere close to killing him again. Caroline Forbes took her promises very, _very _seriously.

It wasn't until the sun began to rise, the stars hidden behind a sky of blue, purple and pink, that Stefan began to stir, blinking sleepily and rubbing his cheek against her leg.

There would be a long drive ahead of them, filled with hard truths and feelings she'd spent a long time trying to bury, but it was worth it. Having him back, knowing that he was alive, that she wouldn't be losing him just yet; that was worth her frayed nerves.

She helped him to his feet and joined him as they leapt down from the roof of the building they'd been camped out on. His car was a bit of a walk away, but they didn't speed through the still busy sidewalks of Las Vegas to get to it. Instead, they moved slowly, like they had all the time in the world. He took her hand, folding their fingers together, and they walked toward a future not yet explored but looking pretty damn promising.

She smiled to herself, turning her head to look up at him, awash in the early morning sun, just as handsome as ever. And he turned to grin at her, squeezing her hand and drawing her a little closer.

Eight months ago, she thought it was the end, but now she knew it was all leading to a new beginning, and she couldn't wait to see where it would go.

{**end.**}

* * *

**author's note**: _feels like ages since I wrote steroline, so this was actually a lot of fun, even with the super flux of angst. I don't watch TVD as much anymore, unless there's steroline scenes, which I've been excited to see there have been a lot more of lately. I mean, we got super-bff feels and a cuddle and stefan saying he'd sacrifice himself for caroline and jealous!caroline and stefan giving his blessing to delena and defending caroline to elena and then we got him dying in caroline's arms after, pretty much, saving her life. so yeah, steroline feels for life, guys. no kidding. obviously, I'm going the optimistic route and assuming that stefan's not gonna bite the dust for long (and will come back and fall in love with caroline and live happily ever after). _

_I hope you enjoyed this! It's always nice to get a steroline prompt, especially since I don't see them written very often. And I enjoyed writing this darker side of Caroline as she deals with her grief and her feelings of guilt. I think they were building up her feelings for stefan a lot this season. I'm iffy on how the writers will handle it, but I'm happy for whatever scraps we get. _

_Thanks so much for reading! Please leave a review; they're my lifeblood!_

**- Lee | Fina**


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